


Sweat

by electricblueninja



Series: Rise [5]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricblueninja/pseuds/electricblueninja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <img/><br/>  </p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Changmin entered Heechul’s office with the click of the safehouse deadlock still ringing in his ears.

 

 

On the one hand, he felt slightly ashamed of himself for it. Heechul had given him the order to keep Yunho in place. But perhaps he should have just... _asked_ him to stay.

 

 

On the other hand, he was sure that Yunho would not willingly stay. Not for his own safety; not by request; not for anything. Changmin had had no choice but to lock him in.

 

 

There had been something different in Yunho’s eyes when they’d spoken this morning. Something he did not understand.

 

 

Not that he had understood him at any point during their short acquaintance.

 

 

He also felt slightly awkward because of...well...the night before. Honestly, he had not meant for that to happen. Again. But Yunho’s scent, and his smile—

 

 

Changmin felt slightly ashamed of himself for that, too. Guilty towards Yunho, and guilty towards Heechul, especially now that his employer had hinted at new complexities in the situation. A visitor, he’d said?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heechul welcomed him into the room with a wave of his hand. His expression was mild, his features smooth and nonchalant, but Changmin detected a layer of tension beneath the surface.

 

 

‘Reporting, sir.’

 

 

‘At ease, Shim,’ said Heechul, a typically good-humoured prod at Changmin’s inability to let go of certain habits. He gestured for him to close the door. ‘Take a seat.’

 

 

Changmin sat.

 

 

‘It looks like things are going to get interesting in Gwangju.’

 

 

‘You mentioned something along those lines, sir.’

 

 

‘The thing is, Changmin…I had a visitor. He called himself Mr Park. And the thing that has me perplexed is that he seemed to know about the Choi incident, and more. Which would be fine, except that I don’t know _him_. I don’t know him, but he knows about me, and seemed to want to involve himself in my business.’

 

 

Changmin frowned. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d seen Heechul look uncomfortable.

 

 

‘What do you want me to do, sir?’

 

 

‘I’m not sure, Changmin,’ said Heechul. ‘I just don’t like the fact that he _walked in here_ like he owned the place.’ His lip curled with annoyance. ‘I don’t want to rush into anything but…this feels like it might get complicated quickly, and I want to get on top of it before that happens. I made a few calls, but Mr Park seems to be above the paygrade of my contacts, and that's what has me wondering...You were Special Forces, Shim.’

 

 

‘Yes sir.’

 

 

Heechul steepled his fingers together, frowning. ‘Did any of your people have…private lines of work, as it were?’

 

 

Of course they did, but Changmin had chosen not to know about them. ‘None that I cared to be aware of, sir.’

 

 

Heechul clearly understood the evasion, and pushed the issue. ‘That's a yes, then.’

 

 

Entirely truthfully, Changmin said, ‘I don’t know any of the details, sir.’

 

 

‘But you knew _of_ them.’

 

 

‘There were rumours.’

 

 

Heechul nodded. ‘I'd like to hear about those rumours, Changmin.’

 

 

Changmin didn't have much to tell. His ignorance had been a deliberate choice. What you didn't know, you didn't have to lie about. Better to be thought stupid and safe than clever. He had heard rumours, but never repeated them. It had served him well, in the sense that he'd never had any 'accidents' or attracted undue attention from the less palatable parts of the military.

 

 

‘Does Yunho seem like he has any connections with anything like that? Military?’

 

 

That was an unexpected question. ‘He said he wasn't military.’

 

 

‘You already asked him?’

 

 

Difficult to explain the context of that conversation. _Y_ _eah, when we woke up,_ _aft_ _e_ _r_ _I slept with him._ _The second time._ _Because he's covered in scars_ _that start on his ass_ _._

 

 

Caught on the back foot, Changmin could only nod.

 

 

‘I was curious,’ he said, lamely.

 

 

Changmin hated the way Heechul always looked like he was smirking. It made it extremely difficult to know when he was _actually_ smirking. ‘Uh huh. Well, anyway, he has a sister.’

 

 

‘What?’

 

 

‘His name is Jung. Jung Yunho. Jung Yunho has a sister.’

 

 

_I didn’t even know his last name._

 

 

‘Jung Jihye,’ Heechul continued. ‘Turns out they were born here. Their mother is from Gwangju. The parents aren’t here anymore, but she is.’

 

 

Heechul handed Changmin a photograph.

 

 

Changmin studied it, feeling strangely reluctant to do so—as though he was invading Yunho’s privacy. As though he had some sort of _compunction_ about invading Yunho’s privacy.

 

 

Oh, this had been a bad idea from the get-go. Yunho was dangerous, after all. Not Yunho personally. Well, maybe he was. But no, he was dangerous because of what he was doing—what he’d already done—to Changmin.

 

 

Changmin stared at the gentle smile in the photograph. Yunho was unmistakeable. Big man, small face. It couldn’t be a recent picture: no scar on his cheek, and his eyes were bright and innocent here in a way that they were not any longer.

 

 

His sister was much prettier, but her smile was like his.

 

 

Changmin studied her a moment longer, memorising her face.

 

 

‘Find Jung Jihye, Changmin. I want to know what his story is.’

 

 

 

 

Somehow, Changmin was not surprised when he returned to the safehouse to find Yunho gone.

 

 

The note, though—that was slightly unexpected.

 

 

_Changmin, I’m sorry. -Y_

 

 

Sorry?

 

 

For reasons he did not care to think about, Changmin folded the scrap of paper so that the handwritten scrawl faced inwards, tucked it inside his jacket pocket, and surveyed the empty studio again.

 

 

Yunho had gone through the window. That much was obvious, because he’d broken the bars off of their welded bases to do it. This seemed to Changmin a sign that Yunho was either phenomenally strong, impossibly clever, or had had _some_ kind of field training at some point in his life. The latter seemed the most likely of the three.

 

 

It also looked like, Changmin thought, an act of desperation.

 

 

Why?

 

 

What was he running from?

 

 

Well, no point wasting any more time here.

 

 

Changmin called Heechul to notify him of the escape. Like Changmin, Heechul did not seem surprised, and told him to just find Jung Jihye.


	2. Chapter 2

Yunho didn't have a plan, and he knew that that was going to be a problem.

 

 

For the present, there was only one place he could think of to go.

 

 

It was also the last place he _should_ go, but he really didn't have any other options. Contacting Jihye through any of the usual means—phone, internet—would be traceable. And no doubt they would trace him eventually, but he'd prefer to go on borrowing time for as long as humanly possible.

 

 

Besides, there was no one else he could ask for help.

 

 

Jihye and her family lived in a quiet suburb in Gwangju's west. She and her husband were both hard-working, high-powered personalities. He was involved in the city council; she had worked for the government, too, but was now working her way up the ranks of an education technology company.

 

 

They had a young daughter, Eunji. It was the middle of the day, and she would be at school, otherwise Yunho wouldn’t have gone. She had been around three years old when Jung Yunho had died. She must be around...six or seven, now.

 

 

Of Yunho’s family and friends, only Jihye knew that he had actually survived. He feared for his parents’ safety too much for them to know; besides which, after the shock of his death, the shock of his survival might be crueller yet.

 

 

He'd explained the need for secrecy to Jihye as a kind of witness protection.

 

 

She was sharper than a knife, but she’d either bought it, or let it slide without comment.

 

 

Anyway, she had been an enormous help to a man called Kim Yunho. Perhaps because he had a first name in common with her brother, or perhaps just because of his good business sense when he moved to Gwangju from Mokpo, she’d invested heavily in helping him set up his bar.

 

 

But now that there had been a fire at Kim Yunho’s apartment, it was probably a good idea to check in with her, and at least let her know that he was alive.

 

 

Through a stroke of good fortune, she was home, though she wore a confused expression when she came to answer the the back door, becoming one of surprise when she recognised him.

 

 

'Oppa!'

 

 

She looked him up and down, her lips upturned but her brow furrowed and her eyes shining too brightly. The expression was halfway between happiness and misery.

 

 

It had been a long time since they'd seen each other.

 

 

‘Come inside,’ she said.

 

 

Yunho hesitated.

 

 

‘Eunji’s at school, right?’

 

 

‘Yes, it’s only me home. Come inside, oppa.’

 

 

He stepped in, and she closed the door, locking and bolting it before turning back to him.

 

 

'Something bad, huh.'

 

 

Yunho nodded; breathed in deep. 'I'm sorry, Jihye.'

 

 

She shook her head. 'I'm glad you're alright. The fire was on the news, but they said no casualties at that stage, so...' She waved her hands and smiled with only the slightest bitterness. 'I just hoped for the best.'

 

 

'Some people are looking for me.'

 

 

Jihye stared at him, teeth worrying at her lower lip. ‘Accident my ass,’ she said, under her breath.

 

 

Yunho gave her a questioning look, and she sighed with resignation. ‘That’s how they’re reporting it, oppa. According to the news, the police say it was an “accidental blaze”.’

 

 

No suprises there.

 

 

'Jihye…I need to disappear.'

 

 

She was all business immediately. 'What can I do? What do you need?'

 

 

‘First, I—’

 

 

‘Mum and Dad are fine. Now tell me what you need.’

 

 

She complained the whole time, but she cut his hair for him, almost back to the scalp. Yunho had not had his hair cut close since he was a much younger Jung: he’d grown his hair to hide himself, and its loss left him feeling exposed. Vulnerable. But it achieved his objective: even he hardly recognised himself in his reflection.

 

 

Jihye had turned off the clippers and was putting them away when there was the sound of a car outside. Plenty of other cars had passed in the twenty minutes or so that it had taken for Jihye to shave Yunho’s head, but this was different, because it moved slowly, and stopped close.

 

 

Foreboding washed over Yunho. They had found him. Far too quickly.

 

 

He and Jihye stared at each other, waiting in silence until the knock on the door.

 

 

When it came, it was heavy and uncompromising.

 

 

The bathroom they were in was on the ground floor, and the front porch and yard was visible to them, though they should not have been visible from the outside.

 

 

‘I’ll go get it,’ Jihye whispered. She indicated the stack of her husband’s casual clothing that she had brought in. ‘Change your clothes. The window unlatches.’

 

 

Yunho nodded. Anything above a whisper would be audible—he dared not speak, only mouthed ‘thank you’.

 

 

She nodded back, and, with a rueful smile, turned and left.

 

 

Yunho listened carefully as she opened the door.

 

 

‘Yes? Hello?’

 

 

‘Jung Jihye?’

 

 

The voice was unmistakeable.

 

 

 _Shim Changmin_.

 

 

Yunho slammed his fists quietly against his thighs, and began to change his clothes. He should have known. _He should have known._ Christ, the man was like one of those dogs with the jaws that locked when theygot their teeth into something.

 

 

How had he followed? How had he found— _how did he know her name?_

 

 

_Oh no._

 

 

Oh no.

 

 

_Them._

 

 

There was only one way for Changmin to know where Jihye lived. Well, fuck them, and fuck Shim Changmin. Son of a bitch.

  

 

‘I’m looking for your brother,’ he heard Changmin saying, but his attention was redirected by the sunlight glinting off the sleek surfaces of another one—two—three cars pulling up along the curb outside.

 

 

If Yunho knew them, there were at least two men in each vehicle. Where was…? There it was. Changmin’s car was there, too, but there was no one else in it, from what Yunho could see. Seven of them, then.

 

 

_Fuck you, Changmin. I’m not sorry anymore._

 

 

He should have known, of course. What did he think Changmin was to him? A friend?

 

 

No, it was exactly like he'd thought from the beginning. Changmin was no different from the rest of them: a liar and a mercenary, never to be trusted.

 

 

'Idiot,' he whispered to his reflection, which stared back at him. 'Idiot.'

 

 

After that, his only thought was to get them away from Jihye. He slipped into his sister’s husband’s jacket—a little tight, but it would have to do—and scruffed some lingering loose strands of hair off his head. Then, jamming his feet back into his shoes, he went out the window.

 

 

It’d be nice to leave somewhere from a door again one day.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a long interval between when Changmin knocked, and when Jung Jihye opened the door, but when she did eventually appear, it was to leave Changmin momentarily stunned by her beauty, pinned to the spot as she looked up at him with enigmatic dark eyes.

 

 

Eyes like Yunho’s, and no more readable. If the appearance of a large man in a black suit over six foot tall on her doorstep intimidated her, she showed no sign of it. She only lifted her eyebrows, suggesting confusion.

 

 

‘Yes? Hello?’

 

 

‘Jung Jihye?’

 

 

A pointless courtesy. He knew who she was.

 

 

‘I’m looking for your brother.’

 

 

She parted her lips, and furrowed her brow, staring at him. ‘My…my brother?’ Only the tightening of her fist at her side betrayed her performance. Otherwise, she might have convinced him.

 

 

Changmin resisted the temptation to simply barge into her home. She was standing there too firmly for that, deliberately planted in his way, and he did not wish to harm her. Besides, there was just the slightest possibility that Yunho was not here—yet.

 

 

He tried again. ‘Yes, ma’am. Your brother. Jung Yunho.’ _Give me something._

 

 

Nothing. She held his gaze without moving. ‘I think there’s been some mistake—’

 

 

‘May I come inside, please.’

 

 

They both knew that this was not a request, but even then, she endured his stare, hesitating, one hand on the door as though she’d close it in his face.

 

 

For a moment, he thought she would do it—try to slam the door, and make him use force. But after a moment, she reluctantly stood aside. Was he there already? Was she buying time? No matter. He mustn’t rush.

 

 

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But would you mind explaining who you are, please?’

 

 

‘I just want to ask you a few questions about him,’ he said, moving into the entrance hall, and instinctively surveying the pictures hanging along the wall. There were many of a young family. Jihye, a husband, a child...One the same as the one Changmin carried, too. ‘Do you might if we sit down somewhere?’

 

 

Her eyes narrowed at him, and she pointed down the hall. ‘The living room,’ she said, ‘is this way. But I’d feel much more comfortable if you introduced yourself, sir.’

 

 

Changmin moved in the direction she indicated, and found himself in a tastefully furnished living room.

 

 

But no sooner did he move deeper into the building, and lose sight of outside, than there was a low throbbing hum outside.

 

 

Engines. And he couldn’t see, so he was left trying to guess. A car? Cars? How many? How close?

 

 

Three, he guessed.

 

 

Nearby.

 

 

How nearby? Out the front?

 

 

He didn’t know.

 

 

He prowled into the living room, and began to move towards the window, to see if he could catch a glimpse of the street. But Jung Jihye, following awkwardly behind him as he moved into her home, spoke again, spoke suddenly, and her words brought him back into the room as though she’d slapped him in the face.

 

 

‘My brother has been dead for years. I can’t imagine why anyone would come asking questions about him now.’

 

 

Spinning on his heel, Changmin gaped at her.

 

 

‘W-what did you just say?’

 

 

The silent stalemate of mutual incomprehension on one side and hostility on the other was shattered abruptly by a disturbance in the street outside. The sound of screaming tyres filled the air, vanquishing the peace of the suburban afternoon.

 

 

Changmin span again. _Now_ there was a need to rush. He made it to the window to see three cars—he’d been right, then—half-hidden in clouds of smoke and exhaust fumes. Glancing back over his shoulder, he also saw Jihye's attention shifting to the wall behind his head. So he’d been right about that, too.

 

 

‘He’s here, isn't he,’ he demanded flatly, and then, having an uncomfortable realisation, added, ‘Or _was_.’

 

 

She began to look ashen, her hand creeping to the wall beside her for support.

 

 

Changmin rubbed his hands through his hair, suppressing his visceral frustration at the impossibility of…of everything. All of this. Then, moving on impulse, he moved forward, grabbing Jihye by the shoulders. He should have been gentler, but he was sure he was going mad. She stilled in his hands, as though coiling to strike. He felt her anger, or fear, or whatever it was, bubbling just below the surface. He had to make her understand. So, before it could erupt, before she lashed out at him, he blurted the first thing that came into his head: ‘Jihye, I'm trying to protect him. I swear on my life.’

 

 

The words left his mouth without thought and without artifice.

 

 

Jung Jihye’s intelligent eyes flashed, and through her shock, he could see that she believed him. The tidal wave of adrenalin in her receded quickly.

 

 

The one who was left the most confused was Changmin, who hadn’t realised it was true until he said it.

 

 

He was here because Heechul had ordered him to come, but if it came down to it, if Changmin was forced to make a choice, then everything else could go to hell. If it came down to it, orders from Heechul were secondary.

 

 

If it came down to it, the first thing he would do was protect Yunho.

 

 

‘I have to go after him. Did you recognise the cars?’

 

 

Jihye shook her head.

 

 

Changmin looked outside again.

 

 

There had been three cars, but only two had disappeared down the street in screams of protesting rubber.

 

 

Which meant that, any moment now, there would be a knock at the door.

 

 

Good. Changmin could use this.

 

 

‘Jihye,’ he said, quietly, ‘Someone will come to the door soon. Don't panic. Just open it. Let them in. Keep their attention. I won’t let them hurt you. Please trust me.’

 

 

The staring competition was much shorter this time. She considered it, then made her decision. She nodded, her expression hardening, and Changmin was quietly impressed. She had grit.

 

 

When the knock came, she waited until Changmin had concealed himself; waited for his signal before she opened it.

 

 

‘Jung Jihye?’

 

 

‘Yes? Can I help you?’

 

 

‘We're part of a task force; this here is my partner. We've been assigned to the capture of a dangerous criminal. He's been spotted in the neighbourhood. Do you mind if we come in?’

 

 

 _Task force my ass_.

 

 

Doubt flickered across Jihye’s expression, but she mustered herself, and let them in, and successfully pretended Changmin didn’t exist. Changmin made a quick study of their bearing. Their swagger and the fit of their clothing indicated that they were carrying guns, concealed under their jackets.

 

 

She directed the intruders to sit with their backs to the hallway, and offered them tea.

 

 

They never got it, of course.


	4. Chapter 4

Changmin’s captives were initially unhelpful, but he managed to convince them to cooperate.

 

 

Sometimes it amazed him what people would say under threat of violence, though his own perspective on what constituted pain was a little skewed. Not everyone went through the kind of training he’d received in the Special Forces, so not everyone could be expected to have a high threshold.

 

 

Anyway, eventually, after he’d managed to extricate the key information, he knocked them out, so that they would be easier to handle.

 

 

He put one of them in his own car and drove it several blocks south, to make sure it was well clear of Jihye’s house. Then, he moved the unconscious man into the driver’s seat, released the handbrake, and watched as his poor, faithful vehicle thudded into a concrete pylon, hard enough for the airbags to blow up and to justify the injuries of the ‘driver’.

 

 

After fifteen minutes or so, he also called the police, to report the theft, although someone else would have to report the accident, so that the police could reach the logical conclusion that the driver must have had an accident trying to steal it. After all, the car was hotwired and everything (because Changmin had made sure of that).

 

 

This task completed, he walked the few blocks back to the other vehicle, where he'd left the second thug trussed up in the passenger seat.

 

 

Changmin sat on the bonnet for a moment to think about the best way to tackle the situation.

 

 

His captives had informed him that they were employees of a certain Choi Siwon. (Naturally.) And they were taking Yunho to a warehouse on the northern banks of the river.

 

 

It seemed slightly mad, though, for them to be so determined to harm someone who had been a mere bystander when Changmin had…dealt with…Siwon.

 

 

It seemed unlikely, but…perhaps someone had somehow found out about Changmin and Yunho’s, uh, tête-à-tête, and Changmin was being baited?

 

 

This was still a deeply unsatisfying conclusion. It raised more questions than it answered.

 

 

Changmin sighed irritably. People were erratic and illogical, and he hated it.

 

 

For now, he must simply get Yunho back.

 

 

After using a handful of zipties to fix the unconscious man in the passenger seat more firmly in place, and prevent any attempts at escape or assault, Changmin roused him, and extricated the directions to the warehouse. It was only about twenty minutes (eighteen, to be precise), and would have been less, except that Changmin was wary of police activity in the area—after all, a crime had been reported quite recently—so he kept well within the speed limits.

 

 

Changmin sneered as they pulled up near the building. The warehouse was one of those obviously sinister structures: dilapidated, and clearly not used for legal purposes.

 

 

He cut his passenger free from the car door, and, heaving him unceremoniously out onto the gravel, stood behind him to bind his wrists behind his back. His intentions, he thought, were clear, but people could be daft, so he took the added precaution of whispering in his prisoner’s ear a gentle warning about how he’d better be careful and make sure there was no gunfire, or it was going to hit him first.

 

 

His captive, surly, nodded.

 

 

There were three men by the warehouse doors.

 

 

 

They stared when Changmin and their workmate came into view. One of them called out to him by name before they’d fully understood the situation, and then a silence descended as uncertainty spread over their faces.

 

 

_Amateurs._

 

 

‘Hello, kids,’ said Changmin, over the top of their colleague’s head, ‘Nice day for it?’

 

 

They stared sullenly for a moment before one of them, drawing a cheap (Chinese?) gun, stepped forward.

 

 

‘What do you want?’

 

 

Changmin sighed, loudly and deliberately, and shook his head. ‘Now, now. That’s no way to greet a visitor.’

 

 

The remark was intended to be inflammatory, and got the desired result—the other two, following the biggest one’s lead, reached for their own firepower.

 

 

Changmin began to apply some pressure to his captive’s wrists, which would have sent pain jangling up through his joints, up to the shoulder.

 

 

‘Tell them what to do, my friend.’

 

 

‘Put them away,’ his captive growled.

 

 

‘See, kids,’ Changmin continued, ‘You took something of mine, so I’m just here to collect it. No one needs to get hurt. So how about you let me in to talk to your boss, huh? You can come in too, if you want. I don’t mind being supervised. I’m unarmed.’

 

 

This was clearly not the kind of situation that had turned up in their training. If they’d even _had_ any. They seemed utterly stupefied, and Changmin almost felt sorry for them—they were probably just fresh out of high school, or dropouts, maybe, trying to make a quick buck.

 

 

Ah, well, this was where trying to get quick money got you. They’d’ve been better off getting jobs doing night shifts in convenience stores than doing dirty work for sanctimonious, entitled pricks like the Choi family.

 

 

The young men whispered among themselves for a minute or two, and seemed to reach a consensus. They led Changmin and his captive inside, into a brick-walled space deep in the guts of the decrepit building. Brick-walled and probably soundproofed.

 

 

They unlocked the door and led Changmin inside, to more or less exactly the scene he had expected to find.

 

 

Altogether, there were eight men in the small room.

 

 

One was Yunho, who was fastened inexpertly but firmly to a metal chair.

 

 

It actually took Changmin a long moment to recognise him. The first reason was that his small face was covered in scarlet blood, but the other was that his thick, shaggy mane of hair was gone, with only a thin layer of black stubble covering his scalp. The overall impression was vastly different to the first night Changmin had met him.

 

 

Yunho was surrounded by six thugs, holding various instruments of violence.

 

 

Yunho had a black eye, and was bleeding from a split lip and a nasty gash on his cheekbone, but showed no other signs of visible damage—Changmin had arrived before the beating proper had begun.

 

 

The eighth man in the room, presiding over the beatdown, was Choi Siwon. When they’d opened the door, he’d been standing over Yunho, looking down at him with derision, the overall attempt at intimidation only slightly marred by the fact that both of his hands were still encased in plaster casts. He might’ve been seated, at some point: there was another chair behind him. And perhaps he’d been saying something, but now that the door had opened, seven of the men in the room had turned to stare at Changmin, their expressions an entertaining range of astonishment, fear, and surprise.

 

 

Only Yunho did not look up, which, for the briefest second, Changmin found disappointing. But he had no time to consider the emotion. He had work to do.

 

 

It did not take long at all for him to rearrange the room. It was particularly convenient that all of the thugs were armed, because he could use their own weapons to put them down, and in quick succession at that. They simply were not well-trained enough to face someone who’d come from where Changmin did. They weren’t even slightly ready for the onslaught, and, since he had taken them by surprise, they were all on the floor within two minutes and thirty five seconds.

 

 

He’d thrown his original captive into the startled arms of the kids by the door. The biggest one of them was the quickest to come to his senses, but unfortunately for their side, he was too trigger-happy, and the bullet he no doubt intended for Changmin did not hit its fast-moving target, instead incapacitating one of their own.

 

 

The boy was still reeling from firing the weapon when Changmin whacked him over the knees with a bat that the shot man had dropped. He knocked the other two in their stomachs with the ends of the bat, collected the weapons into a far corner of the room, and began the task of dragging the full complement of resistant and sometimes struggling bodies into a circle, propping them up against each other and ziptying their limbs together.

 

 

Choi Siwon, though shaking with fury, did not resist him.

 

 

Yunho, on the other hand, had begun to look at Changmin now, through his good eye, and though his expression was obfuscated by his injuries, it looked like confusion, and possibly anger. And not anger directed towards his captors. Anger at Changmin.

 

 

Changmin tried to push back confusion of his own at Yunho's look, and their eyes locked in silent stalemate.

 

 

Eventually, Changmin couldn’t bear it, and broke the silence. And even with an audience, there was only one question that left his mouth.

 

 

‘Why did you leave, Yunho?’

 

 

Yunho looked different without his hair to hide his face, and covered in blood, but he was still painfully beautiful. He also no longer had anything with which to conceal surprise at Changmin’s question.

 

 

He stared up at him, and said, earnestly, ‘Why would I stay?’

 

 

It was such a brutal and sincere question that the force of it drove Changmin a step backwards, his fists tightening defensively.

 

 

 

It was a logical question: Why _would_ he stay?

 

 

Yes, logically, Changmin understood.

 

 

 

So what was this part of him still insisting that Yunho _should_ have stayed? Stayed where? With _him_? And why…why did he hate it so much when Yunho was out of his sight? It wasn't like he was afraid of losing him or anything. That was ridiculous. The whole thing was just getting more and more ridiculous.

 

 

‘Fucking hell,’ he said, irritated with both of them, ‘I'm trying to help you, Yunho.’

 

 

Unexpectedly, Yunho burst out into bitter laughter. His voice was sharp when he responded, reflecting the question back at him. ‘Why? Why would you do that?’

 

 

‘Psycho,’ interjected one of the thugs, under his breath.

 

 

Changmin kicked the chair beside him across the room. It narrowly missed the tangled heap of men on the floor, smashing into the wall and falling to the ground with a clatter.

 

 

No one said anything else.

 

 

He moved to the heap of weapons in the corner of the room, and retrieved a knife, which he used to carefully cut Yunho free.

 

 

‘For fuck's sake Yunho,’ he said, softly, as he knelt at his side, ‘I'm trying to protect you.’

 

 

‘Don't,’ Yunho replied, his voice taut. He rose unsteadily to his feet as Changmin cut his legs free, adding, ‘I already asked you—stop.’

 

 

At this, Changmin lost his temper slightly; before he could stop himself, he had surged back into a standing position and taken Yunho by the shirtfront, pushing him back against the wall. Yunho's legs hit the chair, which toppled loudly onto the concrete.

 

 

The mood between them was of clashing wills; two equal forces slamming together, reaching stalemate.

 

 

When he spoke again, it was barely a whisper, but the room was so silent that it echoed. ‘Why won't you let me help you?’

 

 

Suddenly, there was a muffled sound from Siwon. Changmin recognised the voice.

 

 

He turned to shoot him a murderous glare, but the instant he diverted his attention, Yunho shoved him back, and Changmin, half unprepared, half leery of the other man’s injured arm, yielded. It was his turn to find his back pressed against the rough brickwork, Yunho staring him down with that unreadable look on his face, whispering a fierce response:

 

 

‘What I need is for you to _l_ _eave me alone_ , Changmin. You don't know anything about me. You don't know—’

 

 

He stopped, abruptly losing his momentum, and Changmin impulsively placed his hands over Yunho’s, curled into fists on his lapels.

 

 

 

‘Yunho. Please. Let me help you.’

 

 

Yunho shook his head. ‘I can’t. I’m leaving. Don't follow.’

 

 

Changmin was left standing, stunned, as Yunho left.

 

 

At the metallic clang of the door as Yunho departed, Choi Siwon laughed, softly and scornfully.

 

 

Disgust showed on his face, as though he somehow knew what had passed between them, and this time, Changmin could admit that there was a legitimate possibility he had given himself away by his irrational and impulsive emotions.

 

 

‘Ridiculous,’ said Siwon. ‘You piece of shit. You really have no idea…’

 

 

Changmin chose to channel his internal torment into slapping Siwon across the face.

 

 

He followed this by taking Siwon's pocket square from his pocket and shoving it into his mouth.

 

 

‘No one asked you,’ he said.


End file.
